


one more for the road

by gandrshot



Series: a fever dream [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Courier is Lone Wanderer | Lone Wanderer is Courier, Drug Use, Gen, Mild Foreshadowing, Mild canon divergence, Relationship Development, not an exact retelling of the quest, one for my baby, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 01:05:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18173813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gandrshot/pseuds/gandrshot
Summary: The courier isn't sure she believes in true evil when it comes to the hearts of men. Not until Novac.





	one more for the road

**Author's Note:**

> title from [One For My Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkwdkUXQ1yo) (i know Sinatra's isn't the original version but it's the version i know) for which the quest is named. i'm p sure everyone knows that at this point but you know just in case
> 
> edited 7/29/19 to fix some errors but the story or content itself hasnt changed

 "Oh, you poor thing, you look exhausted."

    As Cosima squinted against the harsh lights of the Dino Dee-Lite motel lobby, she struggled not to frown at the quaint old woman sitting at the counter, giving her a once-over through the lenses of her beaten old glasses.

    "Long walk," was all the courier said.

    "Oh, I'm sure - did you come from the north or the west?"

    "West."

    The woman clicked her tongue. "Those hills will sure give you what for. My old bones couldn't take it - if I could even find the time to leave this lobby, that is," she joked, and Cosima felt it best not to say anything about the magazine she'd been reading just before the courier walked in. "I'm sorry, I got so caught up in the chit-chat I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Jeannie May, I run this place." She stuck her slender hand out, thin and arthritic and calloused with age; Cosima shook it gently, almost afraid of hurting the poor woman.

    "Cosima. I'm a courier."

    "Oh, is the old Mojave Express in Primm finally up and running again?"

    "Sort of. They're kind of settling in with their new mayor still I think."

    "Oh, good for them. Word got out here about what happened, it's just so sad."

    "It sure is."

    "Now, were you looking to stay the night? I've got an extra room open, a nice flat rate of a hundred caps and it's yours for as long as you like. At least, till the busy season rolls around."

    A hundred caps sure didn't seem like much when Cosima considered her aching feet and shoulders, body begging for a reprieve in a real bed for once. How long had it been since she'd slept in a real bed? Since Goodsprings, at least, and that was almost a week and a half ago now. "You know what, that sounds wonderful."

    "Oh, excellent, let me get you that key."

    As Jeannie searched through the spare keys hung up on the wall behind her and pulled out the proper paperwork, Cosima dug out her fare, counting caps out quickly in tens. Aside from Jeannie's muttering to herself - _now where did I put it again?_ \- silence settled in between them, comfortable. For a moment, with how tired she was, Cosima almost forgot why she'd come all the way out here in the first place. Almost.

    "Can I ask you something?"

    "Of course, dear," Jeanie replied, returning with the key and the guest ledger

    "I'm guessing you meet most of the people who pass through Novac, right? I'm looking for a man in a checkered suit - he should have been travelling with a few Great Khans. Did he happen to come through here?"

    Jeannie scoffed. "Oh, he came through all right. Rude young man - one of those city folk with his nose held so high you couldn't see it from under the clouds," she lamented, then eyed Cosima dubiously. "Is he a friend of yours?"

    "Sort of," she replied, trying her best to smile brightly about it. "I actually need to get a package from him and we just keep missing each other."

    That seemed to take the edge off Jeannie a little bit. Not that Cosima could blame her - if she had the choice, she wouldn't want to run into any more friends of his, either. "Well, I'm sorry to say they didn't stick around more than just the one night," she apologized. "Those boys he was with seemed to know Manny, though - he's one of the snipers, up in the dinosaur's mouth. Maybe he can point you in the right direction."

    "I'll be sure to check in with him."

    "Hope it helps, dear. Now, if you could just sign right here."

 

* * *

 

"Sorry to say it," Cliff frowned, with what seemed like genuine remorse written across his face, "I just don't think I've ever seen a silencer for that model of rifle come through this shop."

    "No, it's alright," Cosima replied, hoping she hadn't deflated too visibly. "It's a hard to find piece; just wish my old one hadn't worn out back in St. George."

    Cliff whistled lowly. "St. George is a long walk from here - Utah, right? What brings you out to the Mojave?"

    "Courier."

    "Really!" He raised his eyebrows. "You know, I think ol' Daisy's been trying to get a package up to Freeside, but what with all the mess in Primm no one's been able to get a courier to run it up for her."

    "I'm on a pretty big contract right now," Cosima replied, hesitantly, but the helper in her seemed to win the fight, and she tacked on, "but since I'm on my way up there anyway maybe I'll pay her a visit."

    "I know she'd be awfully grateful. Daisy's in the last room on the second floor, you can't miss it."

    "Sounds great," she replied, smiling politely.

    "Was there anything else you needed? I'm about to close up shop, so if you forget anything you'll have to wait till morning."

    "No, I think I'm set on supplies. But..." The courier's eyes couldn't help but wander to the staircase to her left. "The snipers' nest is right up there, right? Would it be alright if I went up to ask a few questions? I've been looking for... a friend of mine."

    Cliff seemed to need a moment to think about that. "Well, I think it'd be alright," he decided eventually. "Just knock before you head out there - our night shift sniper gets a little jumpy."

    "Oh, of course. Thank you." Cosima finished packing her new caps and goods into her bag, offering a polite nod, before making her way up the stairs. Just like she was told, she knocked twice, waited a moment, and pulled the door open.

    The back of a man in a thin grey shirt and red beret greeted her, lit up by the light from inside that washed out the darkness of the wasteland all around them. Stock-still with the focus of a sniper in action, he kept his sight fixed down the lens of his scope, scarcely batting an eyelash at Cosima's presence - you might have thought he didn't even realize she was there, if he hadn't spoken up.

    "I thought I said not to bother me."

    "Oh. Um..." She wasn't exactly sure what to say to that, her reply dying off before it could even form. But her voice seemed to get his attention; the man stiffened, finally tearing himself away from his scope and clicking on the safety of his gun before turning to look at her.

    "Sorry. Thought you were someone else." But the apology seemed half-hearted, especially when he tacked curtly onto its end, "What?"

    "I'm so sorry to bother you. Are you Manny?"

    "No." His voice went cold at the name, enough to make Cosima recoil visibly. With a greeting like that she shouldn't have been surprised. But maybe it was something in the courier's expression that made him take pause - like maybe being a _total_ asshole wasn't his intention. He took a deep breath, brought his nerves back down, and tried again. "He's the day sniper. Try again in the morning after nine."

    At least his effort at politeness made her ease up some, frame relaxing just a little. "Oh. Of course, thank you."

    The night sniper made a move to grab his gun again, like that was that, but she spoke up again, stopping him. "Actually, maybe you can still help me?"

    "Doubt it."

    "A man in a checkered suit passed through here a few days ago - I was hoping maybe you had information on him?"

    "Yeah. Left early in the morning, about sunrise. Must have come in from the west, 'cause I sure as hell didn't see him or the Khans he was with before that. Don't know anything else. Sorry."

    "They took the 95 north, though? Vegas-bound?"

    "Probably. Boulder City's the only other stop before then. Not like there's anything else worth stopping for if you're a civilian."

    "Still, you've been a help. I'll check with Manny in the morning then to see if he knows anything else - thank you, really."

    "Yeah." He sounded completely disinterested as he slung the gun back over his shoulder, but as Cosima turned away, just as she was about to step back out the door, he stopped her. "Actually, wait."

    She paused, and, gingerly, stepped back in and closed the door quietly.

    He didn't face her this time, just unclicked the safety and brought the stock back to his shoulder. He was quiet for a moment as he ran his sights across the wasteland below, and she wondered if she should remind him he had been the one who stopped her in the first place, till he finally spoke up again.

    "You just got into town, right? Haven't seen you before."

    "Uhh- yeah. Came in maybe an hour ago."

    "I might have something you can help me with."

    "I... sure." Seldom was she one to turn down a chance to lend a hand - even if he hadn't made himself very easy to want to help. "What can I do for you?"

    "I can't trust anyone in this town. You're an outsider - that's the only reason I'm asking you this. But I need you to find something out for me. If there's even anything to find."

    "Well, I can certainly try."

    "My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come, what route to take, and they didn't take anyone else. Someone set it up. I don't know who."

    That made Cosima's blood run cold. The Legion had been nothing but a damn scourge since she first laid eyes on the bull. Sometimes it seemed like there wasn't enough ammo in the world to keep them down - but she tried where she could.

    "Are you trying to track her down? Because I can help, I'll go with you-"

    "My wife is dead." He was curt and sharp about it, whipping around to cut her off. "I just want the son of a bitch who sold her."

    "Are you sure?" She offered meekly. "She could still be-"

    "No. I'm sure, alright? If you aren't going to help me hunt down whoever was responsible then I don't have anything for you and we should quit wasting breath."

    "No, I'll help," she relented. But maybe one day she'd do some digging of her own, see if she couldn't find the poor girl. Maybe. Perhaps he was right - a lot of Legion would-be slaves wound up dead, heads blown off in escape attempts or finding suicide their only reprieve. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

    "You find them, you just bring them out front of the dinosaur while I'm on watch. Wear this so I'll know it's them." He pulled his beret from his head, handing it over. The tan line on his scalp suggested he didn't take it off much. "I'll take care of the rest." With a wary scowl, though, he eyed her own rifle on her back. "And don't you dare think about taking this into your own hands here. This is my shot to take, not yours."

    "Wouldn't dream of it."

    "Good. Then we're done here." He turned back to the wasteland, staunch and stoic, like she wasn't even there.

    "Can I get a name, at least?"

    "What?"

    "Your name. I'm Cosima." She stuck her hand out for him - not entirely sure he'd be willing to take it, how ice cold he'd been. He stared back at her, and then down at it, just for a brief second, before taking it with a firm shake - no hesitation, not so aloof as his demeanor, and she could appreciate that, at least.

    "Boone."

    "Nice to meet you, Boone. I suppose I'll be seeing you when this is over."

    "Yeah."

 

* * *

  

The sunrise in Novac was the prettiest she'd seen since Goodsprings, the way it cast its light on the courtyard of the little motel, the sight of the hills past the town's boundaries like something out of a painting as she leaned over the railing of the second floor, a cigarette hanging from her fingers and only ED-E buzzing beside her to cut the silence. Maybe it was just the fact that she hadn't slept in a real bed since then, though, that had her in such a good mood.

    The town was small, but there was still plenty to do - a ways from the motel the doctor who had set up shop was willing to swap supplies and stories, even if she was a little sharp around the edges about it and said things that made Cosima wonder just how capable she was. And maybe the kitchen facilities weren't exactly state of the art, but at least they offered the courier a better breakfast than being on the road would.

    Halfway through a plate of deathclaw eggs, Cosima turned to the only other woman sharing the tent with her. "Does the man in the sniper's nest ever have anyone bring him food while he's up there?"

    "Boone?" The woman seemed startled that anyone would ever even think to bring him up. "No, he doesn't like anyone bothering him. I think Cliff used to try, but you get shot down enough times..."

    Maybe Cliff had been who Boone's rude first impression was meant for. 

    It was 6:45 by the time Cosima finished frying the second plate of eggs, and brewing one more cup of coffee than usual, carrying it all precariously up the steep steps to the dinosaur's mouth.

    This time Boone didn't say anything when she pushed the door open, but when he turned and saw her carrying a plate of eggs, trying to pass him a cup of coffee, his shades couldn't hide the surprise on his face.

    "What is this?"

    "Is it not obvious?" She edged the mug his way again, egging him on to take it, and albeit reluctantly, he did, reaching out to grab it like it might bite him.

    "I can't take my eyes off the road to eat. People get killed that way."

   _In broad daylight?_ She wanted to jest, but she caught herself - she'd watched the Legion take entire towns in midday sun, and she knew he was right. So instead, she offered assurance - "I'll take over the watch, it's okay. 

    Maybe he had caught on to the way her hand shook when she tried to offer him his breakfast. Maybe he just didn't trust her as far as he could throw her, beyond asking her to do his dirty work. Whatever the reason, he hesitated - a long, drawn-out hesitation, seconds ticking by as her mouth fell to a concerned frown.

    "Fine," he snapped finally, taking the plate he was offered, too, and leaving his rifle against the teeth of the dinosaur as he moved out of the way.

    The mouth of the dinosaur made an excellent roost, Cosima noted, now that she had the chance to peer out of it with her own scope. You could see the whole 95 from there, and if the hills didn't block her line of sight, she thought she might even be able to catch sight of the edge of the Colorado. Caravans and their pack brahmin moved slowly but surely up the long highway, distant geckos skittered from hiding place to hiding place - but other than that, the Mojave morning was still, peaceful. It would have been fine weather for walking in, had she been able to leave that morning.

    Boone, leaning up against the wall behind her, didn't speak. There was a tension in the air that weighed heavy on her that told her, even if she couldn't see him, he wanted to - he'd pause every so often, suck in a breath like he was about to speak up only to exhale quietly in some self-imposed defeat. She knew she was the kind of woman that begot questions - Boone just seemed like the sort of man that didn't ask them. So she just let him sit in his silence.

    When he was done, trading places with her again, he finally worked up the nerve to say something. "We shouldn't speak again until you're done."

    She had to admit, it wasn't the sort of thank you she expected. "Worried about the conclusions people will jump to?"

    "Especially with you digging around. No one knows that I know and I want to keep it that way till the son of a bitch is dead."

    Cosima nodded solemnly. "Wouldn't want them getting the slip on us."

    "So we're on the same page."

    "I suppose we are."

    By the time he finally worked up the nerve to turn around and thank her, she and that eyebot were already out the door.

 

* * *

  

"I just can never make it up to the city these days," Daisy lamented over a cup of tea Cosima had been too polite to refuse. "And my nephew never comes down anymore, even though he always says he'll try to find the time. I think he just works himself too hard. So I always try to send something nice with my letters when I get the chance."

    She seemed more like a grandmother than an aunt, both in age and demeanor. Daisy was the sort of woman the courier liked to imagine her own grandmother might have been, if she'd known either of them - old and kindly, without having lost the fire she carried in youth. Maybe if she'd really been born in the vault, her grandmother would have sent cookies to their living quarters every week and sat down to tea with her on the Saturday afternoons that her father was too busy working when she didn't have class.

    Cosima pulled herself from her thoughts as Daisy set a package on the table, wrapped tightly in twine and addressed to a man named Arcade. "If you can't find him, Julie Farkas - she runs the place - she'll know where he is. Probably throwing himself into his work, no doubt."

    "Has he been with the Followers long?"

    "Since we moved to the Mojave, which would be about... oh, what year is it? '81? So almost twelve years now."

    "Wow."

    "It's the kind of work he always wanted to do," Daisy explained. "Helping people, trying to put things back together after all the damage mankind has done - that sort of thing."

    Arcade seemed like a man Cosima would get along with.

    "Oh, but I shouldn't be talking your ear off like this, should I? You're with the Mojave Express, aren't you? It usually costs me about a hundred caps to get these packages run up there, does that sound right to you?"

    Daisy twisted in her chair to reach into the bag at her side, but Cosima held up a hand to stop her before she could get any further.

    "Actually, since I'm on my way up there anyways, I'd be happy to take it free of charge." Normally she'd consider it more efficient, running two jobs to the same place at a time; and more than once she'd done just that. But there seemed something awfully rotten about taking caps from an old woman when you were already her last resort. "Just consider it a favor."

    Daisy scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous, you've gotta put food on the table somehow."

    "Really," Cosima assured, "I'm doing alright on caps these days. You can keep 'em. I'm just happy to help."

    The old woman clicked her tongue and looked about half-ready to open her mouth again, but after a moment she sighed, frame settling back as she resigned. "Well, if you insist, but you've got to promise you'll stop in to see me next time you roll by Novac so I can fix you something for dinner. I knew a girl back in the NCR that could slow-roast a molerat like you wouldn't believe; I know I don't quite do it justice but I got the recipe from her before I left, and I've gotten pretty damn close with it."

    "Oh, of course." Novac wasn't exactly one of her regular stops, but if she stuck around in the Mojave, maybe she'd have to make Daisy one of her regulars. Though that was a big _if._ That would all depend on how things went at the Strip, and who knew when that would be, given how long this trip was taking.

    Speaking of - if she wanted to get out of town anytime soon, she'd probably want to finish the favor she'd already promised first. Sure, she could slip off in the morning after Boone had already ended his shift, get out of town with him none the wiser, but... the idea of going back on her word like that left a sour taste in her mouth, like she should feel ashamed for even considering it.

    "Actually, while I've got you here, could I ask you something?"

    "Of course, dear."

    "Do you know Boone well?"

    "Craig?" Daisy tutted. "No, not well. Not sure anyone here can say they know that poor boy well. 'Cept for Manny, maybe, but... the two of them aren't exactly on speaking terms anymore."

    Oh. That would explain the hostility when she brought him up. "He's the other sniper, right? What happened between them?"

    "Manny didn't get along well with Boone's wife, Carla; she went missing a few months ago, and things just haven't been right between the two since. It's sad, really, they were good friends back in the day. Served First Recon together; the way I heard it, Boone even moved out to Novac to stay close to him."

    "Oh." That was sad. And... suspicious, unfortunately. "What happened to Carla, do you know?"

    "Can't say. The girl just disappeared one night. She didn't like it here, and boy, everyone knew it. I'd say I wouldn't be surprised if she just got sick of it all and walked off one night, but..."

    "But?"

    Daisy shook her head. "What I'd heard, there'd been signs of a struggle. I get the feeling whoever it was knew people would think she just left - I don't feel right about playing into that hand."

    "I see," Cosima replied, hoping she didn't sound as sick as she felt about it all.

* * *

 

Manny wasn't much like Boone at all - he, for one, clicked his safety off and turned to face the courier as soon as she knocked on the snipers' nest's door and cracked it open, greeting her with a sort of friendliness she half-wondered if Boone was even capable of.

    "You must be the new face that rolled into town last night," he observed, plucking the cigarette from between his lips.

    "Word gets around fast here, huh?" She replied sheepishly.

    "Tiny town. I'm Manny." He stuck his free hand out for her, seemingly pleased when she shook it heartily. "I'm on security detail around here, so everyone else's business is kinda my business. You see a barrel poking out of the mouth up here, you've got a 50/50 shot it's me. Otherwise, it's Boone."

    "Boone?" Maybe playing dumb would help keep her culprit off her scent for a while. Especially when she had a rather sickly feeling she was talking to him.

    "The nighttime sniper. We were in the NCR together - he's a damn good shot, at least. I'd introduce you, but... we're not exactly on good terms right now."

    "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

    "Don't be. It's his choice."

    "Oh?" She raised her eyebrows, begging elaboration. Manny sighed, and she couldn't tell if he was exhausted about the situation or fed up with people asking.

    "His wife went missing a while ago. She and I didn't exactly... see eye-to-eye on things. Got into a couple of real bad arguments. So one day she up and disappears, and he just stops talking to me." Manny scoffed. "Not like he talks to anyone else."

    "They must have been some serious arguments for him to cut you off like that."

    He laughed, once, short and hollow and devoid of any amusement. "Yeah. She fuckin' hated this place - made sure everyone knew it. I'm not sure she had a nice bone in her body. Look -" Manny paused to take a drag from his cigarette. "- I wasn't exactly born with a silver spoon in my mouth. When I joined up with the NCR, I busted ass to carve out a nice life for myself. Settled down in a nice small town when I got out, wanted to bring my best friend with me to share it - and here's his too-good-for-it-all wife trying to take him away. So yeah, I didn't see _eye-to-eye_ with the bitch."

    "Oh." Cosima shifted nervously from one foot to another - he wasn't exactly making a good case for himself, but what could she say? _That's rough, buddy - say, did you happen to have anything to do with that disappearance?_ That was probably the quickest way to take a long walk off the short observation deck they were standing on.

    Thankfully, he knew how to read a room. "I know what you're thinking. Don't get me wrong - when I heard she'd gone missing, all I wanted was to meet the son of a bitch who did it just to shake his hand myself. I'm not gonna lie and act like this whole place isn't a hell of a lot better without her. But..." He took a long drag from the cigarette. "I wouldn't have done that to him. There's are lines I'm not gonna cross, and that was one of them. Just wish he'd come around one of these days."

    Cosima bit her tongue just to keep from speaking, and hard - if it were up to her, she'd probably rip him a new asshole. _He's right not to talk to you, how could you think that way? Your best friend's wife is probably dead, and you want him to just look the other way when you celebrate? He probably thinks you're as guilty as I do!_

    When Cosima didn't reply, Manny cut the silence himself.

    "Look, she hurt a lot of people. Trust me when I say you wouldn't have liked her either." His cigarette at its end, he took one last drag before flicking it out the mouth into the dust below. "We should probably drop it. I'm sure you didn't come up here to jaw-jack about small town drama. Was there something you needed?"

    All at once Cosima's face lit up with recollection - she'd almost forgotten why she'd been in Novac in the first place, let alone why she'd been looking for Manny since Jeannie May sent her his way. "Right, sorry, I actually needed to ask you about a friend of mine. A man with dark hair in a checkered suit, should have been travelling with some Khans - Jeannie May said you two may have been acquainted?"

    "Benny actually has friends?" Manny snorted, eyebrow quirked.

    Cosima rubbed the back of her neck. "I guess _friend_ is a strong word. I'm actually a courier, he's got a package I was supposed to deliver to someone else and we just keep missing each other. You know how it is."

    Manny blanched unexpectedly. Oh. He _knew._

    "Yeah, I, uhh... all I can do is point you in the right direction." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, suddenly avoiding eye contact - maybe it was to keep from staring at the scar at her temple playing peek-a-boo from beneath her hair, now that he knew what it was from. "But, listen, I've got problems of my own - looks like both of us need help, so you do me a favor, I swap that information with you?"

    "You know, actually, I'm not sure I need directions that badly." Cosima put her hands up, tried to smile as politely as she could. "I'll find him on my own."

    Manny scoffed. "Hey, man, I'm just tryna make it easy on you."

    "If I wasn't up to my eyeballs in favors, maybe I'd have time to lend a hand." _And maybe if I wasn't pretty sure you sold your best friend's wife to a Legion slaving party._ "Sorry."

    "You change your mind, you know where to find me."

 

* * *

  

The Legion kept paperwork - it was one of the more interesting tidbits the courier had picked up on the long walk west, pushing through their territory, discovering that they left a trail of both destruction and paper. Slave ledgers, bills of sale, documentation of every tribe they annihilated. Most of it was probably propaganda, she figured, left behind deliberately to demoralize the locals and draw in the equally bloodthirsty and morally bankrupt.

    She never figured the Legion's penchant for record-keeping would ever help her in a situation like this.

    If she was right about all this, Manny probably sold Carla out for a few hundred caps, and if that were the case, a bill of sale would have been written that fateful night. Were he a smart man, he'd have destroyed it already - there may not be a paper trail left for her to follow. Not till she worked up the nerve to go after Carla herself, anyways, push back into their territory and see what she could find. Cottonwood Cove would be the closest slave camp -  that was as likely a place as any to find a ledger with Carla's footsteps to follow in it.

    But that was all a pipe dream at this point, she lamented, pausing for a smoke against the back wall of the motel, watching a caravan pass along the little road that lead down to the junkyard and Helios One beyond it.

    The townsfolk, at least, could corroborate Manny's accounts of Carla, even if in not such a harsh light - she had to be careful who she asked, lest anyone be able to follow her own trail and realize it was all more than just idle curiosity. But those that she could ask all seemed to have the same story - city girl, profoundly bored with small town life and seemingly bound and determined to make her misery everyone else's business. Although no one seemed to say it quite so harshly as Manny. Which really wasn't helping his case

    Cosima sighed. Maybe she was right. To be honest, she really rather didn't want to be. She tried not to think about what it would be like for Boone if she really did have to bring Manny to the executioner's block - what a rush of emotions he would go through seeing him through his sights, the crushing weight of betrayal, heartbreak, _rage_ when he pulled the trigger on his former best friend. She never should have gotten herself caught up in this mess - but then, would Boone ever know if she hadn't? Was it better to live in the turmoil of ignorance than learn the unforgiving truth?

    It took a rock rattling against ED-E's metal shell to shake Cosima from her thoughts. The eyebot buckled briefly under the impact, startled from its own idle hovering and whirring back into place indignantly, trilling out a binary expletive she really wished he didn't know how to use.

    The shabby, feral-looking man across the road was already reeling back to hurl another rock by the time she had her hand on her .45, pushing back from the wall and taking an angry step forward.

    "Hey!"

    "You make a break for it, missy, I'll distract it!"

    As she quickly closed the distance between them with long, angry steps, Cosima made a point to put herself between ED-E and the man - but something about the way he spoke made her hand on her gun still as she approached. Maybe this was a little more of an ask-first-shoot-second kind of ordeal, even if he _had_ hurled a rock at her companion.

    "What do you mean by that? ED-E is my friend, I don't want you to hurt him like that."

    The man hurled the second rock - barely clearing Cosima's head, and this time she really did draw her gun - but when he reached for the knife on his belt, she stopped dead, keeping plenty of distance between she and it.

    "That means you're with them then, ain't you? Don't you come no closer now, or I'm gonna have to stick you with my stickin' knife. Ol' Sticky's feelin' mighty ornery on this day."

    "No need, I'll stay right here." She furrowed her brows. "Are you... talking about the Enclave?"

    "Ol' government folk what send their robots to take us away and do things like turn ya into deathclaws! I'd reckoned I'd seen the last of them years ago, and then you and your eyebot come along to take our whole town away!"

    "No, no - ED-E's not Enclave, and neither am I. I'm just a courier. No one's getting taken away and... turned into anything."

    "You sure about that? 'Cause I ain't seen none of those eyebots if it wasn't for people snatchin' or watchin' us."

    "Promise. I reprogrammed him myself." Or, suppressed his objectives, anyways - she'd definitely want to hook him into a terminal and do some work next time she got the chance. But at least for now she - and this man clutching his knife for dear life - could rest assured he wasn't going to open fire on any of them or _take anyone away._

    "Well, alright, I suppose ol' No-Bark can take your word for it. But I'll be keepin' my eye on the botha you, y'hear me? And I meant it about Ol' Sticky."

    "I'll just keep my distance," Cosima assured.

    "You sure now? It's kinda hard to hear you from all the way over there."

    The courier sighed, exasperated. She should probably leave him to his own devices - seemed like he wanted to be left alone anyways. But... he'd been the first person she'd met yet with the good sense to be wary about ED-E. Even if his... eccentricities made him seem a little unreliable as a narrator, it definitely didn't make him stupid.

    Maybe he'd be the first person around here who could give her an honest answer about everything, if not a straight one.

    "Can I ask you some things?"

    "You can ask what you want, but ain't nothin' say I gotta answer it."

    "That's... fine. For starters, I'm looking for a man in a checkered coat. Have you seen him?"

    "Sure I did. Camouflage, that coat was, trying to hide from extraterrestrials what can only see in black and white checkers. But they ain't fooled by it 'cause he forgot to put the checkers on his face. I told him so, and he seemed to take it to heart."

    A laugh caught in the back of the courier's throat, died there as she covered it up with a cough. "That was awfully nice of you," she replied, straight-faced as one could in a situation like this. "He's actually a friend of mine, did he say anything else to you while he was here?"

    "I could tell the two o' you was friends, cos' you've got checkers on that bandana o' yours. Must not be a very good friend, though, or I reckon he'd've told you that the red doesn't hide you from those aliens one bit."

    "Oh. No, I suppose he's not a very good friend. I'll make sure to fix that." This was going nowhere. She had to change gears. "I was also wondering if you knew anything about what happened to Boone's wife."

    "Sure do. Seen it all m'self. Seen shadowy folk come to his room and leave again in the middle of the night. Though one o' thems went into the lobby, too, for a spell. Mighty interesting, you ask me."

    "Oh." That was new. "Very interesting, you're right."

    "I thought they might be cannibals, come to eat us all, so I stayed out of sight. But now I know better."

    "Did you find out who they were?"

    "Molerat men!" No-Bark exclaimed. "Come up from the underneath to steal young women with promises of riches and fancy mud mansions with all the latest designer appliances! They covet our ladyfolk's long hair for themselves, on account of them being either bald or balding themselves."

    "Hmm." Well. It was helpful while it lasted. It was hard to say now whether she should take his tale about the one in the lobby too seriously or not. But it gave her more of a lead than anyone else had been able to, at least; even if there was nothing to be found at the end of it, at least it was something to follow. "I'll be on the lookout for them then. Thanks for the help."

    As she turned on her heel to leave, No-Bark called after her, "And you be careful o' those government spooks too, missy, what come lookin' around to take their robot back!"

    "Will do."

 

* * *

  

"Back so soon?" The broom in Jeannie May's hands stilled as she frowned up at the courier in her doorway, reaching up to adjust her glasses. "You aren't checking out already, are you?"

    Maybe there wasn't anything to be found in the office, least of all in broad daylight - when Jeannie closed up shop for the night Cosima was sure she could get a little more digging done, if she hadn't already been able to prove her other hunch. But that didn't change that the courier needed something else entirely.

    Putting on her most polite smile, she replied, "Just had a question."

    "Oh, of course, dear." Jeannie gave a kindly smile in return, leaning her weight against her broom.

    "I was hoping to catch Manny after his shift, but I don't know which room is his. I don't want to bother him on duty anymore than I already have."

    "Oh, still looking for that friend of yours, are you? I do hope that all pans out alright."

    "I'll probably just catch him at the Strip at this point. I just wanted to see if Manny knew anything else I didn't, I forgot to ask him a few things."

    "Of course dear. Well, Manny's room is the third one from the left on the ground floor, if you're facing the motel; just make sure you don't stop in too late, I know he likes to get his beauty sleep when he can."

    "Oh, yeah, of course, I know what it's like trying to man a sniper's post without enough sleep. Wouldn't want to get in the way."

    "Well, we appreciate the courtesy." Jeannie eyed the sniper rifle at her back, like just about everyone else she'd talked to in town. "Did you serve in the NCR, too?"

    Cosima laughed, albeit awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. "No, no - I've been a courier for years now, I just prefer to keep my distance in a fight. I've never actually been further west than the Hub, if you can believe it."

    Jeannie seemed genuinely surprised by that. "Not a lot of folk out here that weren't born and raised that didn't come from California."

    "That's what I've noticed, yeah."

    Jeannie sighed. "Well, I shouldn't keep you much longer. I know you didn't come in here to chit-chat with an old lady." But the message was clear - it was Cosima who was doing the holding up.

    Still, while she had her... "Actually, do you think I could ask you one more thing? I'll be out of your hair right after, I promise."

    At least Jeannie had the good sense to keep up airs, even if her carefully crafted patience was clearly wearing thin. "I don't mind one bit."

    "Well... I got to talking with Manny earlier. He brought up Carla? Boone's wife? I thought maybe you knew something about it."

    Something shifted in Jeannie's face, but Cosima couldn't quite pin down what exactly her new expression was saying - the way her eyes went cold, mouth twitched for a brief second, like the question had done away with the last of her thin-wearing patience. But, the moment passed, and Jeannie settled into looking genuinely sad.

    "Well, every small town has its drama, I suppose," she sighed. "Should've known you'd get caught up in it sooner or later."

    "I'm sorry, I really don't mean to pry - I just thought it maybe there was something I could do..."

    "I don't think there's anything to be done," Jeannie insisted quickly. "I'm sure Manny told you all about her. No doubt in anyone's mind she just up and left on her own that night."

    But Daisy had seemed to think otherwise. Hell, even Manny had played into the kidnapping narrative, even though she was pretty sure he'd done it. "He did say she wasn't very well liked."

    "Carla was a bit like a cactus flower. Real pretty to look at, but there was just no getting close to her. She was one of those city folk, all enamored with the pretty lights and high life. She'd been trying to get Boone to go back with her the whole time they lived here; I know the poor dear thinks she was kidnapped, but really, I think she just got tired of waiting around. You ask just about anyone else in town, they'll say the same."

    "That's really too bad."

    "Yes, it is. But what can you do? I just hope the girl sends him a letter one day, explains to him why she did it. Maybe put his poor mind to ease."

    "That would be nice. I think he deserves some closure." Cosima hoped her frown was more genuinely sorry than it was confused. "Well, I won't keep you any longer. Thanks for all the help."

    "Of course, dear."

    As soon as ED-E was clear of the door frame and Cosima could close the office door behind her, she had to slump against it, let the airs she'd carried herself with inside drop, and just take a moment to collect herself. Something was really wrong here. She only prayed she could get to the bottom of _what._

 

* * *

 

By the time the sun sunk low enough beneath the horizon for the motel courtyard to go completely dark, Cosima had precious little time to work with. There was only about an hour before Manny returned from his shift - hopefully that would be enough to dig through his things _and_ put everything back more or less where she found it. He'd probably catch on to her eventually, given enough time, but if she was lucky she could get him out in front of that dinosaur before he could do anything about it.

    Novac got quiet at night - there was a squatter in the square of the courtyard next to a fire, but his back was to her, and the shadows it cast on the motel's walls were deep and dark and easy to hide in. The Mojave nights were long and dark, and once the blue washed out of the sky, no one could see shit. It was why she kept off the roads at night. It was why this was the perfect opportunity to slip into Manny's room without anyone noticing.

    7:54 PM, according to her Pip-Boy as she casually descended the stairs and slipped into the shadows of the lower level. She'd been watching the courtyard for a while now, waiting on it to clear out enough for her to slip in undetected. Most of the people who weren't in their rooms by then were caravan merchants, and they gathered in the areas around the town, swapping stories and drinking loudly around campfires beneath the overhang of an old gas station a bit to the south. This was the best shot she was going to get.

    The courier had to work mostly by feel, picking the lock of his door - any light and she'd be visible, especially if it was the glow of her Pip-Boy, so she'd just have to take it slow and steady. Not a big issue. This wasn't the first time she'd done something this stupid and dangerous under the immense pressure of time. _Just breathe,_ she told herself, trying to get ahold of the tremor in her hands. _Cool down. Focus on what's in front of you. Not what comes after. Take it slo_ w.

    The fourth lockpick that snapped in the lock, it took all her willpower not to just scream in frustration.

    This never used to be an issue before that checkered asshole shot her in the head. If nothing else, boy, he was gonna _hear it_ from her.

    The room two doors down suddenly opened up, and Cosima's lungs all at once refused to work.

    She could feel her heart hammering in her throat, whole body resisting any movement that might give her away - like she wasn't already as good as caught - she forced herself to pull her eyes to the side, inch her head just enough to get a good look, hand abandoning the doorknob and moving for the gun at her side without her permission.  _At least the .45 has a silencer,_ the survival center of her brain reasoned, like the rational part of her wasn't kicking and screaming against the idea of killing whatever poor unfortunate soul was about to catch her in the act.

    Haggard and looking more exhausted than ever, out stepped Boone, and as soon as the recognition could snap her out of fight or flight mode, her whole body started to work again, lungs heaving out a relieved sigh.

    If he didn't notice her before, he did then, head whipping to the shadows; but before he could close the door behind him she was beside him, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him right back in before he knew what was happening.

    "What the _hell_ is wrong with you?" Boone's own fight or flight senses kicked in just as automatically, and it seemed he favored the former; the heavy motel door thudded shut underneath her weight as he pinned her up against it, forearm at her throat, probably feeling about as feral and threatened as she'd just been mere seconds before.

    "I'm sorry," she wheezed, chest heaving, trying to recollect herself. "I'm sorry, I just- I need your help."

    Boone eased off, then let go altogether, slowly looking at least halfway ashamed for jumping a girl who just looked disheveled and afraid.

    "I'm sorry- you can't-" The words choked to death in his throat as he ran his hand over his bare scalp in frustration, fingers dragging against it with a force that said if there was any hair there to pull, he'd be yanking as hard as he could.

    "No, it's my fault." Her breathing was starting to settle, even if her heart still hammered in her throat, ringing anxiously in her ears. "I just..."

    Her own words died off, petering into nothing as she stared at her hands - between the head trauma and her nerves, she probably wouldn't have been able to hit the broad side of a barn even if she'd managed to get her .45 off her hip, what with how badly her hands were shaking. This was the worst she'd seen herself yet. Cosima was a mess.

    Boone seemed to have noticed, too, no front of gentility as he shamelessly stared. "Your hands shake an awful lot for a sniper."

    "I got shot in the head," she replied, pushing the hair at the right side of her head out of her face to reveal the scar at her temple that it only just barely hid in the first place. It was still pink and fresh against her tawny skin, but she'd been keeping it out of the sun, and Doc Mitchell had a surprisingly good set-up for a doctor in a podunk town in Middle Of Nowhere, Nevada, so the scar was healing well; in a few years, it would probably be barely a ghost on her visage.

    "I'm working on it right now. I've gotten good at shooting around it, I just..." The courier huffed out a frustrated sigh, dropping her hand with a defeated smack against her thigh and letting her hair fall back down to frame her face. "Some days are worse than others. Especially when I've already got nerves to high hell."

    "Should you be on medication for that?" Boone asked hesitantly, surprisingly unsure of himself. Or maybe just of the question he was asking.

    "Probably," she groaned, letting her head thunk back against the door. She'd been considering it - when old Lucy Palmer in the vault had developed tremors over the years with age, Cosima's father put her on a supplement they fashioned out of diluted Steady. Enough to control the tremors in her hands, without giving her the razor-sharp focus of the drug, or all the addiction risks. That sounded like exactly what she needed right about now. If only she had her father to ask, or even the resources of the vault's medical texts, she might be able to figure out how to dilute and dose it herself. 

    She deigned a look at the time on her Pip-Boy - 8:17. Oh, she was so fucked.

    "I need your help," she admitted finally, hoping she kept the begging note out of her tone well enough. "I need you to help me break into Manny's room."

    Boone stiffened, jaw setting and lips pressing into a thin line.

    "Why the hell do you need to do that?"

    "I need..." The courier sighed. It took her a long moment to decide how to answer, even as she watched Boone's brow furrow as he grew more impatient by every long second she took. "I just need to look for something. I'm sorry. I don't want to say anything about it until I know for sure."

    But Boone wasn't stupid. He knew exactly what she was digging for - it was that, or dirt on the man with the checkered coat, and given the way she skirted around the subject, the answer was pretty clear to him.

    Without a word, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. There were only four on it - one went to his room, surely, but she could only make guesses about the others.

    "I'm going with you."

    Her heart sank for him - if she was right, and she really did find what she was looking for in there, she wasn't sure it was the sort of thing Boone wanted to see for himself. She wasn't sure what it would do to him.

    "Are you sure? I-"

    "Move. Let's go."

    The courier scrambled to clear the door, letting him all but storm out of it, waiting on her to shut it gently behind her so he could lock it. If he cared half as much as she did about who saw him going into Manny's room, he sure didn't act like it; Boone wasn't exactly subtle, his heavy, angry steps and tense frame making him obvious even in the shadows. But there wasn't much of anyone around to pay them any mind - not even the squatter seemed to care about whatever ruckus they'd just stirred up, and as Boone picked out another key from his ring, unlocking Manny's door, no one seemed to notice as the pair slipped inside.

    Manny's room was quiet, and lived in - not exactly messy, but not stale, lacking effects the way Boone's had been. A large couch sat in the middle of the room, ajar and out of place, like it had been haphazardly shoved out of the way to make room for something and no one had gotten around to moving it back yet. Judging by the worn mattresses scattered among the ground, Cosima guessed he'd seen company recently.

    For a moment, Boone eyed the terminal on a desk in the very back, in the section of the room the couch sloppily partitioned, before tearing his eyes away from it and going to rummage around on a table off to the side.

    "Hope you know computers. I'll look around the room."

    Good thing she _did_ know computers. It took stepping over a pair of mattresses to get to the terminal, but once she was at it and seated, staring down its soft green glow, she was tapping away at the keys, running break-in protocols and cracking the password like it was the easiest thing in the world.

    He seemed to have the good sense to wait till her hands stilled and the terminal beeped as she'd made her way in to break the silence between them. "What exactly am I looking for?"

    "Um. Anything, I suppose." She'd had ideas about what might be in here, but truth be told, there was no guarantee that was what she was going to find. They'd have to be careful not to overlook something just because they weren't expecting it. "Legion currency or paperwork, probably. They're fond of bills of sale. But he's probably exchanged any money or burned any paper trail by now. Well - if he's smart, anyways. But some people get complacent, don't think anyone will bother to come looking."

    Boone grunted, the best response she was going to get, and she returned her focus to the terminal in front of her.

    It wasn't the treasure trove she'd hoped it would be - only one note was to be found, undated, but a handful of weeks old at this point, left to Manny by Benny's muscle. Maybe that was who Manny knew, not Benny.

    It didn't tell her enough - not anything she didn't already know, anyways. Except that they'd been heading over a layover in Boulder City - which, while they'd no doubt cleared out of the place by now, it gave her somewhere else to look for breadcrumbs, at least. Try and piece this whole puzzle together. But that wasn't the part that stood out to her most.

    "Manny was a Khan?" She asked, before she'd even realized she'd said it aloud. Boone behind her stilled whatever he was digging through, and she turned back to find him looking at her in surprise.

    "Yeah. Left after a real bad raid on an NCR town out east. Couldn't stomach being with them anymore." His voice seemed to darken a little, and she thought she heard him scoff. "Seemed to happen a lot with him."

    "Oh." Manny's history wasn't hers to know, she decided - not after she'd already had to pry so much of his bad blood with Boone out of him. And definitely not if he was the man she was going to put out there for Boone to pass his judgment onto. It was hard enough to take a life - or be responsible for taking a life, anyways - when you knew the name. She didn't need his life story, too.

    She pried a little more in the terminal - she didn't imagine Manny or any Legion he might have been working with were particularly tech-savvy, but she couldn't risk leaving any stone unturned, and that included looking for hidden files, anything locked deeper in she might have been overlooking. But there was nothing. Nothing but the letter from "McMurphy," anyways - though at least she had the good sense to take a moment to download it to her Pip-Boy before logging off and locking it back up like she'd found it.

    "I'm not finding anything," Boone grunted when she stood up. She prayed he was leaving things at least halfway how he'd found them. Cosima took a moment to look under the desk, check the walls around it, even scan the bathroom down as thoroughly as she could for anything out of place. But there was nothing. This wasn't a man of secrets, as near as she could tell, and she wasn't sure if that was supposed to worry her or be a relief.

    "I've got nothing," she resigned as she stepped out into the center of the room, hands on her hips, looking thoroughly defeated. Boone folded his arms over his chest, scanning the room like giving it another once-over would reveal something he hadn't seen yet. Cosima sighed.

    "I'm sorry, Boone. I didn't mean to drag you through all this for nothing. I've still got another lead, I promise I'll figure this out for you-"

    "Time is it?" He cut in, hardly paying her apology any mind. Half-startled, she glanced down at her Pip-Boy.

    "8:50." Time was up.

    Boone swore beneath his breath. "Let's just get out of here before he drags his ass back here."

    Manny would be off at 9 - at least they could clear the room with a little time to spare. But that also meant Boone would be on at 9... realization dawned.

    "Wait a second, you were only just leaving your room when I caught you - have you eaten yet?"

    "No," he grunted.

    "Shit. I'm- I'm so sorry, I never should have had you come-"

    "Don't. I asked to."

    Still, it didn't sit right with her. "Here, uh- do you smoke?"

    The question caught him off guard. "What?"

    "You can bum a smoke off me if you want - or a sarsaparilla if you don't, I don't know. Go take a quick break, I'll fix dinner and bring something up. Take over for a bit while you eat. Okay? It's the least I can do."

    "Uh..." His hesitation drew out long, longer than she wanted to be standing around in Manny's room twiddling their thumbs. She wondered if her proposal was too sudden for him, or if he really wasn't used to receiving this sort of kindness. But eventually, it seemed, necessity won out. "Sure. Fine."

 

* * *

  

Thirty minutes into his shift, Cosima returned with a plate of hot dinner, just like she'd promised - gecko steak, side of that boxed Blamco crap he hated, a big slice of cornbread he figured one of the locals shared with her. They traded off wordlessly, Cosima settling in behind her scope like she had that morning and Boone quietly finding a place behind her, this time on the floor against the wall.

    Cooking had helped her get a grasp on her tremor - she liked cooking, an easy, menial task that distracted her from her anxieties, helped her system cool down after the shitshow earlier. So it made watching the wasteland through her scope a little easier, when her firm grip on the gun wasn't shaking it so bad she couldn't see anything.

    Night was different from early morning, though - she could make out movement, and most color, and vague shapes, and it helped that the area in the daylight was still fresh in her head. But where the deep dark of the Mojave nights was a blessing when you were trying to get somewhere quietly and unseen, it was a nightmare when you were trying to stop anyone else from doing that. Boone must have been used to it. She'd just have to be careful.

    She'd already resigned to the fact that Boone wasn't the conversational type, so if she practically jumped out of her skin when he spoke, who could blame her?

    "Where did you get shot in the head?" He asked around a mouthful of something.

    "Uhh." She didn't want to lower her sights, but something about the question felt like a lot to get into, and her brain struggled to decide how to phrase things without getting distracted from the wasteland before her.

    "You don't have to answer," he assured, when she took too long to do so. "Just thought it might have something to do with the man you're looking for."

    "Lucky hunch," she replied. "No, you're right, it's the reason I'm chasing him up to New Vegas. He, uhh..."

    As she struggled again to collect her thoughts, she heard Boone stand behind her, setting his plate on the floor. "It's fine. I'll take over."

    As she clicked her safety off they switched places in the small space again, Boone grabbing his rifle and filling into the familiar position like it was all he knew.

    She wasn't sure if he wanted her to continue - maybe he'd gotten sick of her distractedness, and this was her cue to disappear. Squandered the opportunity to talk with him about it now that his seemingly limited tolerance for conversation had run out. Awkwardly, she shifted from side to side for a moment, wondering what to do, before he spoke up again.

    "You can keep talking if you want."

    "Oh." Cosima cleared her throat. "He just..." She sighed, and tried again. "I'm a package courier with the Mojave Express. We got a big job in a few weeks ago - someone needed six different objects run up to the Strip along six different routes. Nash said it didn't feel right, but... well, the money was good, and we were willing to do the work. He probably should have listened to his gut.

    "I was courier six of six," she explained. "I wasn't originally supposed to run it, but... courier one canceled last minute, for some reason, moved everyone up. I was the first backup on the list."

    Boone huffed out a short laugh, the kind where you could scarcely tell the difference between it and a scoff. "Courier six, huh?"

    "It does sound kind of neat, doesn't it?"

    "Sorry. Keep talking."

    "Anyways. I guess it's not that interesting a story when you get down to it. I'm usually good at avoiding trouble on routes. It's not the first time someone's hunted me down for the package I was carrying, but he just... outplayed me, I guess." Cosima folded her arms across her chest, leaning back against the wall behind her. "I think he felt... bad about it, I guess? They could have just killed me before I knew what was happening, but it seemed like he insisted on doing it face to face, making sure I knew the... why of it, I suppose. I don't know. The whole thing's weird."

    "Guess you'll be wanting to pay him back for it when you catch up to him, huh." It wasn't a question coming from him - to Boone the answer was obvious, final, but everything still nagged at her, made her want to know _more,_ and it meant even she wasn't sure what she'd do when she got to the end of the road.

    "I don't know. Maybe. Right now I'm still under contract, and the sooner I can get that stupid chip back the sooner I can move on to others. Maybe that's all I want right now."

    "Maybe?"

    "Maybe I want answers," Cosima sighed, "about why that chip was worth someone's life."

    "Wasteland's cruel. People get killed all the time over less."

    "Right, and I know that. But this wasn't just... some run of the mill wasteland murder. Khans are known for raiding and stealing to survive, but I woke up with all my things. Well - I might be short a Med-X or two. Maybe a handful of caps. But nothing that mattered, you know? I had valuable things on me. Hell, I think this gun alone would sell for more than I'm getting paid for this stupid job. If it was about the money, wouldn't all of that be gone?"

    Boone shrugged, well as he could without disrupting his line of sight too much. He was better at this than her, multitasking - or at the very least, better at listening while he looked down the scope. Maybe talking would be a different story - maybe that was why he didn't do it much.

    "I don't know," Cosima sighed again. "Maybe I'll get there and get my answers and decide I do owe him for this shitshow. Who knows."

    For a long moment Boone was quiet, and she just sort of figured he was done, then - Cosima pushed off the wall and was about to announce that she should probably go finish chasing that other lead. But he stopped her before she could speak.

    "Whatever happens, it's your choice."

    There was a sort of weight to it that made Cosima realize he was speaking from a very personal place - like the fates of Carla's killers was his shot to take, whatever happened when she got to the Strip, it would be her's.

 

* * *

  

As the courier stood against the south-facing wall of the motel lobby, smoking idly - letting the cigarette burn itself out and go to waste as she lost herself in thought, more than anything - she realized No-Bark's lead really was her last hope. If it turned out to be a dead end, she was stuck. And she wasn't sure how much longer she'd have in town before people started realizing exactly what she was doing, her culprit included. Cosima wasn't entirely sure what that would mean for she or Boone, but it wouldn't be good.

    Her conversation with Jeannie May hadn't exactly been promising. Not in that it didn't give her anything, but rather, too much to make sense of. Jeannie was the first to push the narrative that Carla simply walked off that night - but even Daisy knew there'd been signs of a struggle. Ranger Andy, too, and... well, No-Bark was a little confused about the situation, but he got the gist of it. Hell, everyone she'd asked believed Carla was taken. Everyone but Jeannie May. And it meant she knew something the others didn't. The problem was that now Cosima had to figure out _what._

    If only Jeannie would hurry up and close down the office already.

    The courier huffed out a sigh, let her cigarette dangle from her lips as she checked the time on her Pip-Boy for what felt like the millionth time that night. 9:55. Boone said Jeannie tried to close at 10, give or take a few minutes - Cosima prayed it would be take.

    Taking another long drag, she leaned her head back to watch the sky. The Novac lights drowned out the stars a bit here - albeit not as badly as the city - but you could still make the brighter patterns out, see the edge of the distant Milky Way. It'd be brighter around 2, maybe 3 in the morning, though she certainly hoped she wouldn't be awake by then to see it. Nothing was worse than hoofing it across the wasteland without enough sleep. Which she might wind up having to do, the rate Jeannie was moving at.

    The way she saw it, she had two options: either Jeannie had played a hand in Carla's disappearance and thought this was the best way to cover her tracks, which, if Cosima was being completely honest, she thought was very fucking stupid; or, there was something wrong on Boone's side of things, be it that he wasn't being honest or he himself was mistaken, and Jeannie was the only one that wasn't buying it. And she really, really hoped it wasn't the latter.

    Maybe Jeannie and Manny had been in on it together. But then, you'd have thought they would at least bothered to keep their cover stories consistent, especially if one of them was siding with what the rest of the town said. Maybe Jeannie May had merely been complicit - let Manny use the lobby as the transaction point, turned a blind eye for him, and changing the story was her way of dealing with the guilt eating her alive. That last one seemed more consistent with the kind old woman Jeannie seemed to be. Even if she did get a bit prickly when talking about Carla.

    "Up late?"

    God. _Finally._

    As Jeannie May passed on her way back to her house, she paused only to eye Cosima curiously, leaning against her motel wall with a cigarette long cold.

    "Just out for one last smoke," Cosima replied, smiling politely at her in the dark. "Helps me sleep at night."

    "Well, the town's plenty safe at night, but be careful if you think of wandering too far, alright, dear?"

    "Of course, ma'am, thank you."

    She watched Jeannie carry on her way, along down the road past the community kitchen and into the small neighborhood of homes that flanked the motel's west. And as soon as she watched her disappear into her home, Cosima pushed off from the wall and beckoned ED-E with two fingers to follow.

    The town was just as dead as it was two hours ago, if not moreso. And the door to the lobby was more visible to where the caravans camped out, made it more likely for her to be seen by one of them - that much was true. But Boone made certain she wouldn't have a repeat of Manny's room.

    "Manny and I both have one," he'd explained as he handed her the lobby key off his ring, a fact which hadn't exactly helped Manny's case. "I just need it back when you're done."

    His temporary parting gift had meant, tremor or no, the door was the least of her worries.

    As she closed it quietly behind her - being sure to lock it, just in case - and clicked on the light, she gave the small one-room lobby a once-over as ED-E, as was customary with every new room they entered, scanned for biometrics. When he trilled in the negative, she gave him a soft pat, holding her other hand up to him.

    "Door duty. Give me a warning if your sensors pick up anyone coming."

    He beeped a soft affirmative before planting himself firmly in front of the door.

    Cosima took a few steps forward, before finding herself in the middle of the lobby, hands on her hips, huffing out a sigh as she looked around. Where could she start? She wasn't even entirely sure what she'd be looking for in here. Surely Jeannie May wouldn't be stupid to keep around any paperwork or currency from the transaction - but then, it was like she told Boone, she reminded herself: some people just got too proud.

    She'd have to start thumbing through the paperwork Jeannie kept behind the desk, she supposed, see if anything stood out to her. Boone hadn't given her an exact date but she knew Carla had been gone "a few months" by now - that could mean anything, really, but at least she could skip over October and September in the logs.

    And the Mojave Express box in the corner was something she'd already taken note of. Johnson didn't like his people to run for the Legion, but it didn't mean it didn't happen - the Legion didn't care about his preferences, and any frumentarii worth his salt could get a package discreetly moved through the Mojave Express without anyone the wiser. Maybe she could head back into Primm for a bit, dig through his logs to see what's been going in and out of Novac the past few months... then again, if she was going to go that far, she might as well get the actual date from Boone before heading out, make the search easier on her.

    For now, the motel ledgers were her best bet. The courier crossed the floor slowly to round the counter, keeping an eye out for anything that might be out of place - a search as fruitless as Manny's room, it seemed - till she stopped dead on the other side of the counter. A safe. Oh.

    It'd be a quicker place to start than months' worth of guest logs and expenses reports, anyways.

    Of course, when she knelt down to give the safe a hearty tug, it was thoroughly locked. Just her luck.

    At least the tremor wasn't so bad right then - the motel office was a securer place than the wide open motel courtyard, and her nerves weren't getting the best of her there. So as she settled down on the cold, dusty tile floor, cross-legged, she had high hopes about pulling out her bobby pins and getting to work.

    By the time she'd made it through the sixth lockpick, she only had three left to work with, and she was going to have to face the facts - lockpicking just was not a skill at her disposal anymore.

    The courier growled in frustration, swinging her bag over her shoulder - she'd been lucky Jeannie hadn't asked about the behemoth of a thing at her back, if she'd even noticed at all - and pulled it open.

    It was great, on the road, to be able to carry so much in the confines of her backpack, tightly packed and precariously organized. In a pinch, it was a pain in the fucking ass. It took too long a moment to find exactly what she was looking for - an empty Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle, rigged up with a makeshift mouthpiece, packed in with a few bottles like it among her medical supplies. Once she had her bag repacked she stared at the bottle with a firm frown, heaving out a sigh and trying to work up her nerves.

    She didn't want to do this. Chems had been the hard line in the sand she'd drawn when she left the vault - even when she turned to smoking, and the occasional drink, she never touched chems if it wasn't strictly medical. She tried to tell herself that it was medical - medication to treat an ailment. But, deep in the back of her mind, she could still hear the part of herself that couldn't be fooled. This wasn't anything like Old Lady Palmer with her carefully monitored and diluted doses. This was a crutch - a stupid, reckless, dangerous crutch that was going to hurt her in the end, and she tried not to hear her father's voice in her head telling her so.

    Cosima put the flame of her lighter to the tin foil of the Steady bottle, and, with just a moment to steel her nerves, inhaled from its mouthpiece deeply.

    It hit harder than she expected it to, and faster - maybe it was because it was her first time. But she could practically feel her pupils dilating, her hands stilling, her heart rate slowing, everything about her settling into a state of precision and efficiency.

    ED-E's whirring suddenly became a lot louder. Not painfully so - just suddenly noticeable from across the room in a way she might not have ever processed before. So had the insects outside that the walls should have been muffling, the slow creaking of the two-century-old building surrounding them, and the sharp electric buzz of the lights set into the ceiling above. Hell, if she strained, she was pretty sure she could hear the electricity itself funneling into them.

    And then she risked the look down at her hands, still clutching the lighter and Steady bottle. A part of her feared that maybe the Steady wasn't even enough to control the tremors - that Benny's bullet had damaged a part of her brain no meds could intervene in, or perhaps damaged it too badly to be repaired. But, sure enough, there they sat, stock still, possibly steadier than they ever had before the two bullets to the head.

    Alright - she could do this. She could actually do this.

    ED-E's frantic beeps stopped her dead in her tracks.

     _Incoming._

    This would have been about the time Cosima's heart lept into her throat - and yet, nothing. The Steady kept her pulse nice and low, calm and collected, and it felt remarkably wrong contrasted against the front flips for style her stomach was doing in the meantime.

    Her eyes darted to the boarded-up door against the nearby wall - maybe if she was quick about it, she could tear them off the wall and drag herself and ED-E inside before it was too late. But she could see the details in the boards from here - they must have been fresh, probably put on by Jeannie herself, or Cliff or Manny or someone else around the motel, and that meant too sturdy to rip out with her bare hands. And there was no telling what it kept locked behind it anyways. Probably rubble with no room to climb inside and hide. "How many?"

     _One,_ ED-E replied. One. Okay. She could take one. Even if it was the last thing she wanted.

    "Come here."

    ED-E obeyed immediately, zipping quick as he could to her side as she ducked back down beneath the counter. She only had a moment to push her bag flush up against the counter, tuck the steady bottle haphazardly out of the way onto one of the counter's shelves, and reach out for the eyebot.

    "Propulsors off," she whispered frantically, and ED-E obeyed, falling limp into her arms as his noisy whirring cut off. She wrapped herself around him tight, hoping to become small as possible, and pushed herself up against the counter as flush as she could just as the door handle jiggled.

    She'd remembered to lock it - thank god. She wasn't exactly a religious woman, but a part of her felt compelled to start paying some mind to who or whatever seemed to be guiding her luck these days. At least, until she heard the key sliding into the lock and the door swinging open.

    "Jeannie?"

     _Manny._ Discreetly as she could, terrified of her own clothes rustling, Cosima reached for the .45 on her hip, carefully pulling it loose from its holster and clicking off the safety.

    The sniper took a few steps into the lobby - a few steps _closer,_ approaching the counter, taking his sweet time. Probably wondering where the hell Jeannie was, if not here.

    The long seconds he stopped at the counter might have been the most agonizing of Cosima's life. It was peculiar, not having her heart hammering in her ears as she awaited the worst.

    She was as small as she could possibly be, but there was no telling if that was enough to hide her from someone at the other side of the counter - perhaps she'd already been spotted, and he was just trying to figure out how to get the jump on her. She could hear his _breathing_ from down there - his _pulse,_ if she strained. Maybe this was her lesson about getting strung out on Steady and using it as a crutch, because in this agonizingly long moment, she could think of no torture worse than being painfully aware of every detail around her.

    It took all her willpower not to audibly sigh when Manny simply let out a "huh."

    She heard his footsteps turn away from the counter, returning to the door; "She must've left the light on," he muttered to himself, as he reached for the switch and bathed the room in darkness.

    Even when the door clicked and locked behind him, she waited several more long moments, terrified of the consequences of not being absolutely certain he was gone - but once she was, she let her whole frame sag, sucking in ragged breaths, burying her face in the hands.

    "Oh my god. Oh my _god._ "

    ED-E beeped softly with concern, and it took her a moment to realize he was still stuck in her lap; manually she moved him to the floor, keeping her legs clear of his propulsors, and allowed him to return to mobility.

    Even as ED-E was back on his (figurative) feet, she let herself sit there in the darkness for a little while, letting her nerves settle, suddenly awfully exhausted by all the shit she'd been through that evening alone. Novac was a hell of a town.

    "Go back to door duty. I just need a few more minutes."

    Cosima wouldn't dare risk turning the light back on - that was a stupid mistake in the first place, especially when she had a Pip-Boy. But she wouldn't make the same mistake twice, flicking its light on and using that to navigate the safe instead.

    It only took one bobby pin under the guidance of the Steady in her system, and she didn't even break it this time.

    All this trouble for a damned safe - it better have been worth it.

    It was difficult to see at first under the light of the Pip-Boy casting the walls of the safe into stark shadows. There wasn't much - it wasn't that it was empty, just not much of anything to make that whole ordeal worth it. _All that trouble and all it's got is caps that aren't worth grabbing and a copy of the guest logs._ Cosima felt about ready to scream. Till she caught the flash of off-white at the very bottom, beneath it all.

    Although she'd only seen them in passing as she dragged herself from east to west through their lands, Cosima knew she was staring down at a Legion bill of sale in her hands before she'd even begun to read it. Her heart dropped like a rock into her stomach.

     _We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford..._

    They could spare her the pretentious dickery - she was barely stomaching reading it in the first place without having to slug her way through this ostentatious display of too-wordy brahmin shit, and Cosima forced herself to skim. Until she hit the words _unborn child._

    Craig was going to be a father, before Jeannie May decided to cut her deal with the Devil.

    The heels of her palms sprung up to her eyes, scrubbing furiously against forming tears. She still wasn't sure about the why of it all - as near as she could gather, it must have been the same reason Jeannie hated Benny so bad, had seemed suspicious of Cosima as soon as she realized they were... _acquainted._ Carla was city-born through and through: hated Novac, missed New Vegas dearly, and Jeannie May must have seen that as enough of an offense to sell her like a thing into slavery.

    She'd seen people sold for lesser reasons in the east - her own excursion into the wasteland was almost cut short by raiders just looking for enough caps to get their next fix. But it was never civilized people, was the problem - or if it was, they had some grand justification for it, like the sanctimonious bastard in the Pitt who couldn't get people to follow him if he wasn't letting them step on the backs of others to do it, all because he thought he was making a better world. Of course he still met the business end of her rifle, but at least _he_ thought he was doing something for the betterment of mankind. Jeannie May was just... complicit in the most heinous act man could commit for the sake of her ego. _Perhaps_ for the sake of keeping their night sniper around, lest his wife take him away, but something in her suspected that took a backseat as far as motivations went, even if Jeannie tried to tell herself otherwise.

    In the tiny town of Novac, Cosima realized she'd found some of the only true evil in the wasteland in the form of a kindly old woman named Jeannie May.

* * *

 

    The courier barely slept that night. It was something about the Steady - she _hated_ the way it made her feel, especially when she'd started to crash before she could even return to her room. At least it hadn't taken enough out of her that she couldn't double, even triple check the locks - and then allow anxiety to get the best of her and have her jamming a chair beneath the door handle.

    By the time she managed to crawl into bed, unsure if she was about to throw up from the Steady wearing off or the shitshow of the night or the horrible realization of the truth about Boone's wife, all she could do was toss and turn. Normally at night she'd want him to stand guard, but Cosima was starting to think the emotion in ED-E was more than just programmed when he beeped at her sadly and turned off his propulsors to drop into bed beside her. And not for the first time she wished she could have met Doctor Whitley. She wished things could have gone any other way for them on the east coast.

    The hard metal shell of an eyebot the size of your torso was not comfortable to wrap yourself around. But Cosima wasn't exactly getting to sleep any time soon, so she did it anyways, more for the comfort of it, the way it eased an aching in her chest. And even if it was a long, agonizing night without sleep, at least she got the chance to rest her eyes in relative peace before it was time to get back to the harsh world outside.

    She dragged herself out of bed about an hour before dawn - the courier still had more than a few hours before Boone's shift ended, but she wanted to get Jeannie out there before the sun was high and all the world was awake to see them playing judge, jury, and executioner.

    "C'mon," Cosima beckoned softly, giving ED-E a gentle pat once she'd gotten her effects about her. "Let's get this over with."

 

* * *

 

    Jeannie didn't particularly like being woken early. Not anymore than anyone else, anyways. Though they'd entered the blue hour, the sun hadn't yet crested the eastern hills and the soft shadows of night still kissed the world around them as Jeannie May stood crankily in her doorway rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

    "I'm so sorry, ma'am," Cosima apologized for maybe the half a dozen time. "I wouldn't have woken you if it wasn't important."

    "What did you say it was, exactly?"

    "I don't know, that's the problem - and Boone can't place it either, he said I should come get you."

    Jeannie May sighed, finding her shoes near the door and tugging her shawl a little snugger around her shoulders as she finally conceded and stepped out into the cool Mojave twilight.

    She'd been too tired to notice the First Recon beret on Cosima's head - or at least, too tired to ask about it - but she wasn't sure that was luck that was going to last. She'd have to pray Boone would take the shot fast.

    "That boy," Jeannie tutted as they walked along the broken pavement. "I swear, he's been here how long? I'd have thought he's seen everything this little corner of the wasteland could throw at him. And you're a courier, aren't you? You've seen even more than he has, and you're still telling me you don't know what it is?"

    They were getting close, now - Cosima's heart rang in her ears as she took a deep breath.

    "Sorry, ma'am, I guess there's just some things I haven't seen either."

    "Well I hope it's not anything that'll threaten the town, you know - it's hard enough to keep things-"

    Cosima had been standing too close when it happened - she could feel the bullet as it whipped past her and cut off Jeannie's fussing the quick way, tearing a sizable hole through her skull and sending her body lurching forward with the impact. She was lucky it wasn't messier than the small splatters of aftermath that hit her cheeks.

    "Jesus _Christ._ "

    Frantically, the courier reached up to wipe the blood away with the thin scarf around her neck, resisting the urge to scrub at it. She kept her combat long-range, too - rarely was she close enough to have to feel the killing being done, deal with the mess that came after. The few times she was were usually traumatizing. She tried not to let the feeling of the late Jeannie May's blood on her cheeks remind her of them.

    Cliff wasn't in yet, thank god, as the courier hurried her way up into the stairwell of the dinosaur's belly. Almost ran headfirst into Boone as she did so, who'd started to make his way down, the look on his face nigh impossible to read. When she just frowned up at him, looking rather harried, he nodded back towards the door he'd just come through.

    "So that's it then." As soon as she closed the door and he had his beret back on his head he folded his arms over his chest, frowning down at her. "How did you know it was her?"

    "I found the bill of sale." There was an unspoken apology in her tone. Cosima wouldn't offer to show it to him - wouldn't withhold it if he asked, either, but it seemed like the kind of thing that would just rip the wound back open. Worse than it already had been.

    Boone looked away, the angle letting her see the way his eyes darkened beneath his shades. Equal measure grief-stricken and righteously furious. "Figures," he scoffed, voice heavy with malice. "Just like the bitch to keep paperwork."

    "It mentioned- um. It said..." How could she bring this up? "I didn't realize she'd been pregnant."

    He nodded slowly, jaw set, gaze still cast away from her, and she watched the way his hand tightened around his bicep. Enough that she worried about him bruising himself. "Six months," was all he said.

    She knew it had been a few months since they first took her, and for as much as it was a hellhole, at least she knew the Legion took care of their mothers. The possibility of hope was crawling back to her again, and though she'd only known Boone two nights and a day now, the way hope made her heart ache for him forced her to broach the subject again. No matter how much he didn't want to hear it.

    "Craig, if she really did survive, your child could-"

    "Stop," he snapped, whipping his head back around to face her. She shut her mouth immediately. "I know you think you know better. You weren't there. You don't know what happened. Drop it."

    There was an implied _or else_ that Cosima wasn't exactly keen on testing the limits of, and while her mind raced with questions - _how could he be sure, what if the child survived even if Carla didn't, what did he see that he wasn't telling her?_ \- she simply nodded slowly, giving in.

    "I'm sorry."

    He just gave a shrug - maybe that was his compromise of an answer, where _it's fine_ was a lie and _whatever_ was too rude - and turned his frame a little, looking out over the wasteland. The sun was still behind the hills but the sky was starting to pinken a little, more and more details of the scenery becoming clearer with every passing second. But his gun stayed stationary, slung over his shoulder, and it didn't feel like just another part of his guard duties. Rather, like one last look for old times' sake.

    There was a long, awful silence between them, Cosima terribly sorry and Boone not terribly in the mood for her pity. The courier broke it before she knew what she was doing.

    "What will you do now?"

    Another shrug. "Don't know. Won't stay here." Boone leaned against one of the teeth, reaching for the cigarette behind his ear; as soon as she realized what he was doing Cosima fumbled for her lighter, offering a flame. He accepted, wordlessly, and by now she knew better than to expect a thank you from him. "Doesn't seem like there's much point in anything except hunting Legionaries. Maybe I'll wander. See how many I can take out before they can catch up with me."

    It was hard to speak for a woman who she'd never met, whose words she'd never heard spoken, and who she knew so little about - but the one thing Cosima had picked up from those who had known her was that Carla always seemed to be wanting more. More accurately, _better._ For both she and Craig. And all of this - the biding his time and wallowing in grief, this suicide campaign against the Legion he was talking about, the entire carelessness and general disdain with which he regarded his life and his will to preserve it? All of it seemed awfully antithetical for what Carla would have wanted for her husband.

    If Carla really was dead, and there was nothing Cosima could do to save her, then she felt a strange sense of obligation to this woman she'd never known to at least honor those theoretical last wishes.

    "Why don't you come with me?" A few weeks ago, that question might not have even crossed her mind - it had been years since she'd travelled with another person. Hell, ages since she'd travelled with anything sentient at all, since she left Dogmeat back in Kansas. That she'd taken ED-E on in the first place was a miracle on its own (albeit for more than one reason.) She still wasn't entirely sure she _wanted_ to walk her road alongside someone else anymore, after everything she'd been through, but... frankly, _not_ asking him to come felt tantamount to murder at this point, leaving him to his own devices to go find whatever trouble was waiting in the wastes. Between that and this strange sense of duty she felt she owed to Carla, asking him to come along seemed like the only thing she _could_ do.

    Boone just scoffed. "You don't want to do that."

    "Why not? I could use a good spotter. You know, back in _my_ day," she jested, like she was the older one here, "Legion boys used to tell horror stories about me around campfires. I've been thinking about getting back into the business."

    Boone scoffed out a laugh. "Oh yeah? I'd love to hear _that_ story."

    "Guess you'll just have to come with me to Vegas, then - I'll tell it on the road."

    She almost thought she saw him cracking a smile, but maybe it was the morning light playing tricks on her. "You drive a hard bargain, six."


End file.
